Calif. man guilty of predatory offenses
Jury takes less than half hour to convict Robison of charges

Robison
HOLLIDAYSBURG — A Blair County jury took less than a half hour Thursday to convict a California man of predatory sexual offenses tied to his cross-country trek in January 2022 to meet a 14-year-old Altoona girl with whom he was communicating via computer and professed to love.
Don A. Robison, 43, who has been a county prison inmate for almost two years since his arrest, took the witness stand in his own defense on Thursday and repeatedly denied having sexual contact with the girl during his two-night stay.
But he did acknowledge kissing and hugging during the visit, after weeks of exchanging text messages, to the point where she had become the only person in his life that he could talk with.
“We just clicked,” he said.
The jury convicted Robison of three felony counts of unlawful contact with a minor with the intent of engaging in involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault and indecent assault.
The jury also convicted him of two counts of indecent assault of a person less than 16, reflecting the girl’s account of how the 40-year-old Robison sexually touched her when he stayed overnight in her house unbeknownst to her mother, plus corruption of minors and criminal use of a communications facility.
Robison, who kept his eyes downward while listening to each juror confirm support for the verdicts, is likely looking at a lengthy prison sentence. In early 2024, he backed away from an offer of 15- to 30-years’ incarceration for guilty pleas.
Judge Jackie Bernard, who presided over the trial and scheduled Robison’s sentencing for May 11, directed prosecutors Jacob M. Jividen and Kimberly Moraski of the state Office of Attorney General and defense attorney Phil Robertson to prepare sentencing memorandums.
Robertson said after court concluded that he will discuss appeal options with his client. In his closing argument, the defense attorney admitted that Robison’s decision to drive from California to Altoona to be with a 14-year-old girl was stupid.
“But stupid does not equal criminal,” Robertson told the jurors.
Jividen told the jury in his closing that Robison manipulated the teenage girl.
He reminded them that in early text messages, Robison told the girl that he was 12 or 13 years old, then sent her a photo of himself that was altered to make him look younger.
Jividen also pointed out that as the message exchange continued, it turned sexual, with Robison providing graphic descriptions of suggested oral and sexual intercourse.
Robison said those conversations developed from romantic movie scenes, including one with a hot tub, that he and the girl watched through a computer app.
“It’s fictitious. It’s just a story,” Robison said when testifying. “There were no (real) life discussions about a hot tub.”
Robertson also tried to influence the jury’s verdicts by reminding them that when the girl encouraged Robison to come to Altoona in late January, she was aware that Robison was 40 years old, based on his admission to her in late December.
Jividen — who said the girl never lied about her age to Robison — put the blame on Robison for the inappropriate relationship and referenced the girl’s Jan. 12, 2022, message: “My dream came true. I have an amazing boyfriend.”
Moraski, when cross-examining the testifying Robison, reminded him of the time and effort he put into communicating with the teenager, before making a five-day drive, then parking in the lot of the Sheetz store at Sixth Avenue and 17th Street and walking to the girl’s house and entering via a second-floor window.
“This was a real house, not a playhouse,” Moraski said in reference to a Roblox computer game that Robison referenced while describing how he virtually met the Altoona teenager, by giving her a motorcycle ride and going to a house where they pretended to be a domestic couple.
“You speak of your care, your concern, your compassion for her … but you never ever told her your real name, did you?” Moraski asked Robison. His answer was “No.”
In asking the jury for guilty verdicts, Jividen told the jury not to accept Robison’s version of events.
“The defendant wants you to think that they were just play acting, that he was lured here … that his intentions were innocent,” the prosecutor said. “But you all know what his intentions were.”